


After Sectumsempra

by Jeanny Turner (Ginada)



Series: Draco Malfoy in English [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1997, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Gen, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Hurt Draco Malfoy, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Sectumsempra, Sectumsempra Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23682610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginada/pseuds/Jeanny%20Turner
Summary: There exist countless rewrites of the famous bathroom scene in the sixth book, on this archive and elsewhere. This isn't another one. Instead, this fic explores what really could have happened after Harry left the scene.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson
Series: Draco Malfoy in English [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716250
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	1. Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Tage nach Sectumsempra](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23682526) by [Jeanny Turner (Ginada)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginada/pseuds/Jeanny%20Turner). 



> Lots of love to [Gedankensplitter](https://www.fanfiktion.de/u/Gedankensplitter) who betaed the original version of this. The translation is unbetaed and English is not my native language, please let me know if you spot any mistakes or would like to beta it.

_May 6 th 1997_

Draco saw the blood before the pain reached him. It spread on his chest, discoloured his white uniform shirt and for a second the whole world was read. Then the world turned dark.

He did not know how, but the next moment he was laying on the wet floor of the old bathroom, and then the pain hit him. It bit sharply in his skin, flashed through his flesh and for a moment it cleared his mind. He saw Potter’s horrified face floating above him, a whitish oval shape surrounded by the black of his hair and his school robes. The black expanded, devoured Potter’s pale face and became everything.

He did not know how long he had been passed out when he regained his consciousness, but the pale, black framed face above him had been replaced by a different one. He would feel ashamed of it for his whole life afterwards and for a long time he would not even admit it to himself, but for a second he was disappointed to be alive. He felt his mind reawaken, he had no chance to stop it, and so the fear returned, the despair, and, at the moment the most pressing issue, the _pain_.

“ _Vulnera Sanentur_ ”, the face above him repeated a healing charm. The intensive singsong filtered weakly through the continued screeching ringing in Draco’s ears. His vision cleared a little and he recognised the gaunt shape of Severus Snape. It was Moaning Myrtle whose wailing and screaming reverberated through the tiled bathroom. The noise was real and not only in Draco’s ears.

The pain intensified and took Draco’s breath when Snape hauled him to his feet. Black spots were obscuring his vision in a dizzying dance and he had to lean heavily on his teacher to avoid falling back on the floor.

“You’ve got to go to the hospital wing. There could be some scarring, but if you take dittany immediately, even that may be avoided … Come …” Snape helped Draco to the door, where he turned around and said with icy anger in his voice: “And you, Potter … you wait here for me.”

“Not the hospital wing”, Draco gasped as soon as the door had closed behind them. Speaking required an immense effort, and still the words were slurred.

“Don’t be silly, there’s no time for that now.”

“I … can’t”, he panted. He tried gesturing with his chin to his left arm. It made him painfully aware that apparently he had cuts in his face as well.

“The mark.”

“Draco …”

“Pomfrey’s gonna tell Dumbledore. He mustn’t know. He _mustn’t_.” He felt the accursed tears welling up again. “Professor, _please_.” He was pleading, begging, but he could not care less right now. They had stopped walking and Draco saw a curiously ambivalent expression on Snape’s face which he did not understand.

“If this doesn’t get the proper treatment you’ll be scarred forever”, he said.

“I don’t care”, Draco said with all the vehemence he could muster. “As long as no one gets to see the mark.”

Snape sighed deeply and his face returned to its usual expressionlessness. “Very well, we’ll go to my apartment. I’ve got some first-aid-supplies there, too.”

Draco was barely able to walk by himself, he would not have managed it without help. Snape’s arm wrapped around his mid steadied him, carried him almost, and the warm physical contact was incredibly comforting. Nobody had hugged him since summer, he had pushed his friends away, and now he was almost ready to throw himself sobbing in Snape’s embrace. But it just was not possible. He had to be strong. And still, he only wanted his mother, or at least his friends. Loneliness and isolation were beginning to make him weird, if he was now finding comfort in Snape, he thought fleetingly.

He fell more than walked through the door to the teacher apartment and Snape helped him to sit on the sofa. The dancing black spots had returned on the last two stairs and were moving more expressive than ever, forming into long tentacles that intertwined, frayed and blended like aquarelle splodges.

“Oi, don’t sleep!” Snape was roughly patting against his cheek. “First, you’ve got to take a blood replenishing potion.” He pressed a cup in Draco’s cold hand. It was too heavy, Draco could not hold it in his weakened state, and he would have spilled it if Snape had not caught it. He held the cup to his lips.

“Drink.”

The potion tasted like metal, ashy and earthy. Draco recognised the taste. In third grade, when he had been bitten by a hippogriff, Madam Pomfrey had given him a spoonful. He drank obediently until the cup was empty and Snape removed it.

“Now you may sleep”, Snape sighed, but Draco did not hear it anymore, he was already asleep.


	2. Wednesday, Ante Meridiem

There was darkness around him when he woke up. The first thing he noticed was a dull pain on his chest. Then he realised he was not in his bed and sat up abruptly. The pain increased and washed over him like a wave, but declined quickly again when he got adjusted to the new position. He was lying, or rather sitting now, on a firm sofa with woven grey coverings. He was still wearing his uniform trousers, but his upper body was naked and bandaged, and someone had removed his shoes and covered him with a woollen plaid. Snape, he realised with a strong pang of embarrassment.

Draco blinked when the room was suddenly illuminated by the light of a candle. Snape entered from an adjoining room, probably his bedroom. It was a sight he had never wished to see in his live: Snape was wearing a white nightdress, his hairy legs stuck in leather slippers and he had covered himself with a brown cardigan.

“You’re awake. How do you feel?”

Draco shrugged. It hurt.

Snape frowned. He crossed over to the little kitchenette and Draco heard several cupboard doors being opened. Shortly Snape returned carrying another cup and a big glass of milk on a tray.

“This is a Nourishing Potion”, he said with a pointed look on Draco’s skinny body. “Drink this. And in future I want you to eat so much you won’t need it. How do you expect to carry out your task while being weakened by starvation? Also, it makes any blood loss more dangerous.”

“I haven’t got the time”, Draco defended himself aggressively, but he took the cup and drank. The Nourishing Potion was of intense sweetness, but also tasted of fat and sulphur, it was not very pleasant and he grimaced. Without being prompted he grabbed the milk and downed it after he had finished the potion.

“I’ve had a little essence of dittany left in my first-aid-box”, said Snape. “You’ll be happy to hear it was at least enough for your face and throat. But some of the deeper cuts on your chest are certainly going to scar. If we go to the hospital wing now, maybe Poppy can still …”

“No! I’m staying here.”

“You’re in my apartment, you should be careful what you can demand here”, Snape sneered, but quickly added: “You may stay”, when he saw that Draco’s façade was on the verge of crumbling.

Draco did not want to go out. Everything hurt, he was cold and felt weak. As soon as he left, he would have to continue working on his mission. He had to fix the Vanishing Cabinet. His desperate alternative plans all failed, and he did not want to endanger any more people who were not even involved in this whole mess. He had tried to convince himself he did not care, but seeing Bell’s face and knowing she had almost died because of him had been unbearable. Bell was a pureblood.

“It’s six o’clock in the morning”, said Snape. “Get some more sleep. Do you need something for the pain?”

Draco nodded. The pain was awkward, it would prevent him from sleeping, even though he already knew from experience that exceedingly worse pain existed. Many months later, lying in his room after being tortured for hours and barely having the strength left to breath, he would sometimes wish not to have taken the Pain-Relieving-Potion now. As if there was some kind of cosmic power granting future relieve for a pain suffered now, as if there was specific total amount of pain, measured out for each and every one, that had to be lived through.

Snape passed him a little ampulla and Draco swallowed the potion. He wanted to ask for a sleeping draught, he rarely slept lately, but before he could do so the exhaustion had easily pulled him into Somnus’ arms again.

When he woke up the next time he tried to keep his eyes shut at first. He did not want to wake up, did not want to think about having to get up and work on the Vanishing Cabinet. His injury had granted him a short postponement, a distraction, a justification to think of something other than his mission, but this would soon come to an end.

Eventually he could not keep pretending to be asleep any longer and he slowly sat up. The light illuminating the room now was diffuse, in contrast to the rooms of the Slytherin students there were no windows into the Great Lake. Instead, the windows showed a mountainous landscape, but even if Draco had not known that of course down here in the dungeons it was only a magical effigy, the sparse, artificial looking light in the room, that did not match the strikingly bright blue sky shown by the window, would have told him.

Draco got up, he was thirsty. He was unsteady afoot and felt battered, but really, he had felt quite like this for the last weeks anyway.

Above the sofa he had been laying on there was a pretentious oil portrait hanging, showing a gaunt, eagle-beaked woman who was eying him with suspicion. That got to be a relative of Snape, his mother probably. Apart from this there was hardly any decoration in the room. A metal clock told Draco it was already a quarter to noon, he had slept for a long time.

Before he could decide to look for a glass in the kitchenette, the door opened and Snape entered. With him the scents of the lesson he had just finished wafted in, fire seeds, Billywig stings, Doxy eggs … The world outside definitely still existed.

Snape’s scrutinising eyes examined him from head to toes. “As I see, you’re better. And now you are going to eat something.”

“I’m thirsty”, Draco said.

Snape shook his head, but he got a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water and handed it to Draco. He downed it, choked on it and coughed violently. Coughing hurt, and suddenly he was barely able to stand anymore. Snape lead him back to the sofa and passed him another glass of water. This time he drank more slowly.

“A house elf is going to bring you something to eat. I’ve got to go back to class, but believe me when I say I will know whether you ate or not”, he said with a quick glance to the portrait above the sofa. “If you need the bathroom, straight through the door over there and then the next door.”

He disappeared, and after a little while a house elf appeared balancing a large tray on his head. He looked around searchingly and then placed the tray in front of Draco on the coffee table.

To his own surprise Draco suddenly did not only feel hunger, but enormous appetite, too, when he smelled the food. He had to stop himself from gorging it down too quickly as he was all of a sudden so voracious. When was the last time he ate? He sat on the sofa, crouched above the plate on the too low top of the coffee table, and shoved bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs and toast into his mouth. He could feel the grease running over his chin. He had to be a vision of abjection, but it did not matter, he was alone.

That his hands were covered in brown, dried blood he only noticed when he reached for the glass of milk. He finished the milk anyway, and another glass of water, before getting up and going to the sink. He changed his mind and opened the door Snape had described as the way to the bathroom. It lead into the bedroom, a narrow chamber with a small, long bed covered neatly with a bedspread. It felt too private, being here where his inapproachable teacher slept, and Draco hurriedly opened the door at the end of the bedchamber that led into a cramped bathroom.

He washed his hands thoroughly. His reflection showed him that his hair, too, was blood stained, and he was glad he had gone to the bathroom. Apparently Snape had got the blood off his body. Still, he would have liked to shower, but he hesitated because he did not have fresh clothes and settled for provisionally washing the blood off his hair under the tab. Driven by a morbid curiosity he removed the bandages and examined his new appearance reflected by the mirror. Thick read lines crisscrossed his chest, as if someone had dragged a large knife over him again and again. On his face and throat there were only very thin, pale lines, but some of the lesions on his chest were quite deep and had not closed properly yet. Draco gently traced one of the welts with his finger and flinched when he touched a raw, open spot. Damn Potter, he was really going to have scars. He wanted to be furious. Furious with Potter, who had marred his body permanently, but mainly he was filled with a paralysing sadness. These scars would always remember him of this horrible time, even if he should survive by some miracle, he could never escape it anymore.

Back on the couch he planned to finish his tee, but after two sips he was already so overwhelmingly tired he had to lay down again.


	3. Wednesday, Post Meridiem

Pansy was sitting on a chair next to the sofa when he awoke the next time, and the glimmer in her eyes meant trouble.

“What in Morgana’s name do you think you’re doing? Do you have any idea how worried I was? Moaning Myrtle is screaming through the whole school Potter’s murdered you, and you’re nowhere to be found!”, she said. It was supposed to sound aggressive, and it did, but Draco still heard the vulnerability in it.

He missed her so much. They rarely talked anymore, and if they did, they talked trivialities. There were too many moments when he was sure to fail, to die; and he was determined not to drag her in, even though she would have joined all too enthusiastically. Her at least he needed to protect. Of course she noticed way too much anyway, and he always hated himself afterwards for having been weak, for having let her get close to him. It endangered her. And he hated her because she would take no refusal. And he loved her because she would take no refusal, the only one who did not give up on him.

“Obviously I had other problems than telling you”, he said. He was glad he had washed the blood off his hair.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital wing?” Pansy demanded to know.

“Hardly possible with that thing”, Draco said gesturing to the Dark Mark on his arm.

“Don’t talk about it like that!” She stroked reverently with her hand over the mark and Draco jerked his arm away indignantly. By now he did not feel the slightest bit of pride looking at it anymore, and her reverence made him feel nauseous. She reminded him too much of his own lost believe in the cause and his grieve for it. It had left an empty space inside him that not even the fear was able to fill.

“What’s it like with Snape?” Pansy asked.

Draco shrugged noncommittedly. “Dunno. Weird. Seeing how he lives here.”

He was glad Snape was letting him stay, but he did not trust him and lately they had not been on good terms. He was constantly trying to interfere with Draco’s mission.

“By the way, what did you tell him to let you in?”

“I think he was afraid I’d actually go and kill Potter.” Pansy’s face clouded over. “But postponed is not abandoned, isn’t it?”

“Leave him alone.”

“What?” Pansy asked flabbergasted.

“Please. I really can’t have the attention. Tell it the others, too. And _please_ don’t write to your parents about it, or mine will know, too.”

Pansy held his gaze, but finally nodded and relaxed slightly on her chair.

“Well then. Our time will come, whether he’ll get his punishment sooner or later doesn’t really matter after all.”

She brushed her shiny black hair back behind her ear. “He got detention for slicing you open and almost killing you. _Detention_ , can you imagine it? If one of us had done something like that with him the best we could be hoping for was getting expelled, but getting straight to Azkaban was more likely I guess.”

She tucked on the plaid and uncovered Draco’s chest, inhaling sharply when she saw the scars, standing out way too red against his pale skin.

“You’ve got to eat. I can count your ribs”, she said absently and pressed a sandwich from the tray into his hand; the house elf must have changed it for a fresh one. He started eating and she immediately pressed a piece of strawberry cake into his other hand.

“Fuck. You almost died.” Only now, seeing the traces on his body, she seemed to actually understand it, and suddenly her eyes were shining with tears.

“Doesn’t matter now”, Draco muttered and covered himself with the plaid again. He saw his own tears in Pansy’s eyes. He looked at her a second too long and she caught a glimpse of the resignation he had felt bleeding out on the bathroom floor which he did not admit to himself.

“Oh Draco”, she said. Her voice trembled, and his composure shattered.

Pansy got up, sliding next to him on the sofa she wrapped an arm round him. He allowed her to pull him towards her while his tears were flowing faster and faster. They stayed like that for a long time, Draco sobbing in her lap, and oh, it was so much better feeling her warm hands stroking with steady movements through his hair and over his back, than the bodiless, futile consolation efforts of Moaning Myrtle.

He almost fell asleep like this, snuggled against her, but eventually she glanced at the clock and said quietly: “Snape’s gonna be here in a minute or so.”

He sat up, reluctant but glad she had let him know. He did not want Snape to see him like this, and she knew it.

Pansy took her wand. “ _Oculus eliquo_ ”, she said, and immediately Draco felt his eyes, swollen and heated from crying, clearing.

“Looking as good as new”, Pansy said with a shaky smile.

He looked at her incredulously. “You’ve know this charm all the time? You’ve got to teach me.” He immediately regretted the sentence when he saw Pansy’s face. He had said too much.

“Of course, I will”, she said sadly. “But Draco, please, just come and find me. Let me help you.” Her expression turned eager. “I am on your side, you know that. My brother got his mark last month, _he_ talks to me. You can trust me, too.”

“Pansy”, Draco said agonised, “It’s really not about me trusting you. Please, you’ve got to understand that.”

‘Your side’ she had said. Sometimes he doubted he if he even was still on one side with the Death Eaters. But Pansy must not know this, it was too dangerous, for her and for him. He wondered how she would decide if she had to choose between their friendship and the Dark Lord. Her brother now being a Death Eater did not make it any easier, and he desperately hoped she would never have to make that decision. They had discussed countless times why he did not let her in on his mission, but Draco feared she still felt hurt. She had doubted his faith in her loyalty, his trust in her skills. He did not know it, but by now she was quite sure about his reasons for secrecy. She watched him breaking under the weight he had to carry and despaired because he refused her help.

“At least … at least find me when you feel you can’t go on, okay? I won’t ask any questions anymore. But I know you’re not talking with Vincent and Greg about it, and not with Theo either, you try to work out everything on your own. Please.”

In the evening Snape sent him back to his dormitory, but excused him again from school for the next day. Draco did not feel pain anymore, only the unfamiliar sensation of the scars, but he felt an infinite heaviness when he left Snape’s room, his temporary refuge. But it was lost anyway, Snape had tried again to talk about his mission with him. Why did he have to bring it up again and again? As always, he had refused any discussion, for his parents’ sake he must not allow Snape being able to dispute his success. Now only the success was wanting, he thought gloomily when he lay in his bed and was, once again, unable to fall asleep. He contemplated getting up and going to the Room of Requirement to work on the Vanishing Cabinet, but he was not sure if everybody else was really asleep. They had been rather heart-warmingly worried about him, in spite of his horrible behaviour towards them this year. It had been an effort to keep Crabbe, Goyle and Millicent from still cursing Potter right on the spot, and Theodore and Blaise had not been less furious, even though they had been easier to persuade that it was a stupid idea. Only Daphne and Tracey had not fussed about him, had not even talked to him, but he felt no resentment, it was better for them.


	4. Thursday and Friday

He knew what Blaise was going to say as soon as he lingered in the door when he was about to leave the dormitory for breakfast. He was the last of the other boys to go, only Draco was still sitting in bed. He hesitated, turned back around and crossed over to Draco’s bed. They looked at each other and Draco sighed. “It’s alright. I understand.” He did not want to hear Blaise’s justification, he fervently envied him for having options, his possibility to choose. 

“It’s getting really serious, there’s gonna be a war, you know it better than me”, Blaise said. There was genuine regret in Blaise’s eyes when he said: “I can’t pick a side at the moment. It’s absolutely uncertain who’s going to be victorious.”

Draco knew his injury had scared Blaise, had made the danger more visible.

“I can’t be seen with you anymore.”

“So this is the farewell then?” Draco asked, his voice hoarse. It was the right thing, it was safer for Blaise. In his place he, too, would keep all his options. And he understood it was easier to actually cut off their relationship instead of just pretending in public. Less error-prone. But nevertheless, even though he himself had tried to distance his friends since the schoolyear had started, it hurt. It made it even clearer how far their victory lay.

“I’m sorry”, Blaise said. Reaching the door he turned around once more. “Be careful, will you?”

Draco used his day off school to work on repairing the Vanishing Cabinet. He had already lost one day, he could not afford more, even though climbing the stairs was arduous and the way seemed infinitely long. Returning to his dormitory in a cautiously optimistic mood, he found Theodore waiting for him. He pressed a roll of parchment, the notes from the classes he had missed, into his hands. “Here. I probably won’t be able to help you on Monday. I’ve gotta go home this weekend.”

Draco slumped down on his bed and closed his eyes. He had made some progress with the cabinet, but now he was completely exhausted. Blazing pale circles were dancing in front of his closed eyelids, his legs were shaking slightly.

“You should still take it easy”, Theodore said frowning. “I’m sure Snape’s got some potion you could take, blood replenisher or whatever, judging from your skin colour you must still be lacking a litre or two.”

“Just give me a second and I’ll be alright”, Draco muttered, and it really did get better. He opened his eyes and saw Theodore sitting on his bed, waiting.

“Have you left some …“, he started and Draco nodded.

“Top shelf, help yourself.”

Theodore stood up and rummaged for the potion against the aftereffects of the Cruciatus curse he would need after spending time with his father’s Death Eater friends. He found the potion and turned around to face Draco.

“We could …” he broke off and shrugged wearily. “Never mind.”

As always it was painful for Draco to know Theodore was heading for a weekend filled with agony and torture, and the thought that his friend was much braver than him burned a hollow feeling into him. But unlike him, Theodore did not had to kill somebody. He refused his father’s wish of joining the Death Eaters out of sheer stubbornness. And unlike Draco he did not have any family members whose welfare could be used as leverage against him.

The next day Draco returned to class. The school was buzzing with excitement because of the upcoming match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw that would decide the winner of the Quidditch cup. Draco was glad about it, most pupils just spared him a fleeting glance, probably thinking Moaning Myrtle had been spreading rumours again.

His friends stayed closely around him as if they were afraid Potter could jump from an alcove and kill him, and he lacked the energy to send them away. When he stood up after the lesson Pansy clicked her tongue impatiently and Goyle hurried to relieve him of his heavy bag. They tried to care for him, to make it easier for him. His heart warmed a little. He just had to continue working on the cabinet. Now he suddenly knew again why he had wanted to do it in the first place. They had to win to preserve their world. To enable his friends to live their lives without being afraid of the muggles, with their own culture, without hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are at the end of this short fic. I would love to read your thoughts and comments - and maybe I should add that, coming from the German fandom which is a lot more direct and open with criticising, I don't mind critical comments at all as long as they are polite :)

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally an oneshot but I decided to split it into four short chapters as I prefer my oneshots to take place over a more limited timespan only.


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